


Sunny, Snowy Sunday

by Vita_S_West



Category: Inspector Morse & Related Fandoms, Lewis (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Snow Day, Snowball Fight, Winter, climate change is a plot device, morons somehow make it work, snowball fight as flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22760209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vita_S_West/pseuds/Vita_S_West
Summary: Enjoying a snow day was not something Robbie had initially expected for his Sunday... Enjoying it with James? Well, that's even better, he might be inclined to say...
Relationships: James Hathaway/Robert Lewis
Comments: 6
Kudos: 100





	Sunny, Snowy Sunday

**Author's Note:**

> see end for note for "realistic-ness" of a big snow fall in Oxford.
> 
> thank you to Pri for the initial chats about winter fics. (Check out her "Winter Wonderland")

Enjoying a snow day was not something Robbie had initially expected for his Sunday. 

The snow started late the night before and carried on, picking up just before dawn. By mid-morning, the snow slowed to a stop. But its damage had been slow and steady and had effectively ground the city to a halt. When people ventured out, they forewent the sidewalks, which were left deep and unploughed, testing their luck on the roads. They slipped and slid, moving like newly born foals across the icy and slushy surface. Cars for their part, moved slowly, navigating foot and regular traffic, as well as wind that carried snow and lower visibility with it. 

The city, ill-prepared, was slow to salt and clear. 

It seemed as if time itself misfired. Sunday fell into a peculiar pit where everything looked fresh and white and familiar, but unignorably different. Navigating wind-sculpted snowdrifts, people walked in the road and cars drove around them. Buses were late and many shops were shut. In front of other storefronts, owners shovelled walkways, picking up where the city failed. Everyone was late, but no one was in a hurry. 

Robbie himself was out walking, with nowhere to go. He took advantage of the weather, the layer of snow clinging to the ground, to the buildings, to the skeletal trees. It was like something out of a dream. His breath came out wispy white. Snow had fallen from a tree branch onto his shoulders, autumnal in feeling, but an incorrect wintry weight. He brushed it off, feeling more novel than cold.

Strolling through South Parks and watching children squeal as they raced about, he found himself enjoying the blistering cold. Even in the snow and wet, there was a crisp dryness to the air. There was something deeply enjoyable, but difficult about walking through freshly laid snow, as his nose grew pink and a little stuffy. He pulled his knitted scarf tighter, pausing to avoid a young family. They were trying to speed past him, going as fast as they could through a foot of snow, up a hill. A biting wind carried a curtain of snow past, warning an end to novel enjoyment. 

Beyond him, the cityscape, formidable spires, buildings, cranes and treetops interspersed. Snowy rooftops looked like mountain peaks. It was a wrinkled whiteness, folding itself into every dip, crook, cranny, and serif, settling like dust into an abandoned house.

He was thinking of heading home, escaping the cold that bit like a mutt to tea and blankets and snuggles with Monty, when he saw a familiar figure. 

James Hathaway, back bent, trudged into the wind. Though most of his face was obscured by a tightly-wrapped bright red scarf, Robbie would recognize him anywhere. He wasn’t sure if it was the walk, the coat, the mere shape of him, the look of pinched concentration in his eyes, or the combination. 

“Oi,” he shouted, “James!”

There was no response as he trawled through the snow. 

Robbie shouted once more, receiving no response. In a moment of frustration, he bent down, packed a tight snowball and heaved it at James. 

Robbie briefly wondered if he’d made a mistake as he watched the ball arch and explode on James’s left shoulder. He had the sudden, strange urge to turn around and pretend it wasn’t him. 

Too late, James stopped in his tracks to whirl around, looking about wildly, squinting into wind and snow. 

Sheepishly, Robbie lifted his hand into a wave. 

James did a double-take and took a few steps forward up the hill, but still pausing several feet away to stare up at Robbie. It felt a little odd to be taller for once.

“What was that for?” he asked, his voice gruff and the only thing keeping Robbie from feeling guilty was the traces of amusement in his eyes. “I thought you were some kid.”

“I was trying to get your attention. Shouting didn’t work. You all right?”

“It’s just… all this bloody snow. I had errands to run and the roads are a mess because everyone seems to have forgotten how to drive.”

“Feeling abused by nature?”

“Only by you,” he grumbled. 

“Over one snowball?” Robbie laughed. “Would another make it better?”

He stooped to make the threat more real, his mitten skimming the ground. 

“Oh, don’t you _dare_ ,” James said, taking a step down the hill, his hand flashing out of his pocket to point threateningly at Robbie. 

While his narrowed eyes would have given Robbie pause, the gravelly sound of his voice guided his arm and propelled another snowball at James, who swivelled around to protect his head on instinct. 

When he turned back around, James looked shocked, but only for a moment before he buried his naked hands into the snow to return the favour Robbie had bestowed on him. Laughing, Robbie was ready with a return shot. The balls impacted and split apart into a spray of snow that resembled fireworks.

Robbie called, “You’ll have to do much better than that, lad!”

Robbie laughed, until he saw James’s set jaw. He had a brief moment to think _Oh no_ , that he had gone too far, but still being excited by the prospect, before James charged him. For some reason, Robbie remained frozen in disbelief. _He’s not really going to—_

The collision knocked the breath out of him even before they toppled to the ground. While the snow broke their fall, James weight still landed atop of him, pulling an “ _Oof_ ” all the way from his diaphragm. 

It wasn’t necessarily… unpleasant by any standards. 

“Oh, bugger, are you all right?” James said suddenly. There was panic in his voice. “I didn’t mean to knock you clean over!”

While James tried to pull himself up, Robbie’s arm snaked around him, briefly savouring his weight–the closeness—and with a speed James clearly hadn’t anticipated, rolled over onto him. 

“I’m old, not fragile,” Robbie puffed. 

James stilled, his eyes wide as he stared up at Robbie. His ears turned bright red against the white snow. 

“Are you all right?” Robbie asked hesitantly. 

“Yeah, fine,” James said, his voice sounding as woolly as his scarf. 

Robbie started to get up, suddenly feeling he’d taken a joke too far.

James’s hands landed on his waist and tugged on him. Robbie stopped his efforts to disentangle himself and stared down at James’s pale fingers, bracing the cold, wrinkling his jacket. 

As quickly as they came, they fell away. James’s face was so red, Robbie wondered if it was all from the cold. He chided himself quickly, the lad wasn’t wearing mittens! They shouldn’t be rolling around in the snow. He would get James frostbite on his hands. His lovely—

The two jerked themselves to their feet, their mouths opening and closing. Only the trailing humidity of their breath came out. 

“I’m sorry, I—” James said, his voice tight and his eyes wide. He was still redder than the mercury of a thermometer, redder than his own scarf. 

“It’s fine—”

“No, I bowled you over and then I—” He couldn’t put words on it. 

“Really it’s quite all—”

“I’ve been thinking about y—”

“Yes?” Robbie said suddenly, his heart leaping. “What have you—”

James’s face became drawn, his eyes wide, but his lips tight. Silence fell between like snow. Neither blinked. Suddenly James turned and bolted. 

“James!” Robbie shouted. “James, wait!”

Not for the first time, Robbie thought of hurling a snowball at the fleeing man. Wasn’t that how they got into this mess?

As luck had it, James slipped while avoiding a dog walker and Robbie, puffing, managed to grab him by the arm and keep him upright. 

“James! Wait! What are—”

“I’m really sorry, I just—”

“Are you shaking?” Robbie said suddenly, worry clouding his voice. 

“No.”

He was. He was actually shaking. He wasn’t wearing a hat, his ears were bright red and he didn’t have any mittens on, just that scarf. 

“Come on, lad, let's get you warm.”

“It’s just a little cold,” James insisted. Robbie had none of it.

He tugged him to where he’d parked on Headington Road. To his surprise, James put up no resistance. He walked beside him, his hands stuffed into his pockets. He had that same pinched look on his face. Hadn’t he been in a good mood a few minutes ago? Robbie shouldn’t have been chucking snowballs at such a poorly dressed target. 

“Here,” Robbie said, “take my hat.”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Your ears are going to fall off.”

“It’s fine.”

“You would look better with ears, you know.”

James blinked and then nodded, taking the hat and yanking it on. 

“Where did you park?”

“Oh, I walked.”

“Where from?”

The silence suggested to Robbie that it was very far. 

“James,” he said slowly, “you didn’t walk from Jericho, did you?”

“It’s barely 40 minutes.” 

“More like an hour!”

“Not with long legs, it’s not.”

“In the cold without a hat or mittens.”

“I have pockets,” James protested. 

“You must not like your ears in that case. Or your fingers. Come on I’ll drive you home.”

***

James assented to being driven to his apartment and they drove slowly through the snowy streets, mainly in silence. James flexed his fingers over the heater and Robbie pretended not to notice. He could have sworn something had passed between them—a burning ember in the burning cold. In the silence, James’s studiously avoided eye contact and Robbie felt disappointment settle in with the car’s heat as they defrosted. 

No, of course, he’d imagined it. James just felt bad for knocking him over. He shouldn’t have been so overly familiar, Robbie chastised himself. Wasn’t he his superior? Wasn’t he decades older? They worlds apart, no matter how close James seemed sometimes. He shouldn’t have thrown the lousy snowballs. 

As he pulled up in front of James’s apartment, he turned to look at him again. To his surprise James was staring at him intently, his brow furrowed as if in concentration. 

“All right, lad?” Robbie asked. The sense that there was something more to the way James looked at him, that there was something passing between returned. Excitement flipped in his stomach. 

Slowly, James blinked, another dusting of pink settling over his features. “Thank you for driving and I’m—I’m sorry for knocking you over. That was—I could have really hurt you.”

“You didn’t though.”

“But I know you’ve problems with your back.”

“It was a joke, James. A bit of good fun is all.”

As soon as he said it, Robbie felt the air shift again. 

“Right, yeah,” James said quietly as he ducked his head. Robbie could faintly make out the grimace on the window’s reflection.

For the briefest moment, James looked as disappointed as Robbie felt. Did he imagine that? Was it wishful thinking? His heart caught in his chest. 

As James reached for the door handle, Robbie’s fingers caught his coat sleeve. He heard James’s breath catch in his throat. “James, I don’t think you could hurt me,” Robbie told him suddenly. 

James froze, unblinking. He hated how gravelly his voice sounded in that moment but it couldn’t be helped. He slipped his fingers from James’s coat sleeve to his wrist. The fine bones of his narrow wrist. Was it his imagination or did his pulse just jump?

“Could you tell me what you were going to say? Before, when you—I’d like to know,” Robbie asked, his voice gentler this time. 

James turned back to look at him, eyes wide. 

Robbie didn’t realize it but he was leaning forward. He meant to lean back when James said, “Would you like to come in?”

Robbie nodded. He hoped he didn’t look too eager.

Inside, he began to feel a nervousness spreading in his stomach and an anticipation spreading lower. He let James take his coat, but could barely hide his exasperation that all James wore under his own was a long sleeve shirt. 

“Are you trying to die of frostbite or pneumonia?”

James looked up in shock. “I didn’t think it was that cold out.” He rubbed his hands together though, which Robbie raised his eyebrows at.

“Go get a sweater. I’ll make you some tea.”

“It’s my apartment you know,” James protested. “Besides pneumonia used to be quite a fashionable way to go. Descartes, Franz Liszt… yes, quite fashionable for a musician. I’d be in good company.”

“Only you would think pneumonia and Liszt were fashionable.”

Robbie heaved a sigh. He didn’t like the idea of James joking about dying, but he didn’t want to seem too sensitive. 

“Are you all right?” James asked. 

Robbie hadn’t realized how pinched his face was at the thought. “I’m fine. Go put a sweater on,” he said again, his voice softer again. 

James gave him a look before drifting down the hallway. Robbie put his head in his hands and tried to bite down a groan. 

_Get a grip, man._

“Right,” he said to himself. “Tea.” _That’ll solve… precisely nothing. But at least I’d have some tea._

Finding the kettle and the mugs was easy enough. He also found a surprising amount of wine, curry pastes and pasta before he stumbled on the tea. 

“You found it?” James asked, appearing behind him in a soft brown button up sweater. His hair was ruffled suggesting he hadn’t bothered with the buttons to pull it on. 

Robbie blushed and ceased his snooping. “Yes, I didn’t think to look in the tin,” he said and slipped it back into the cupboard. It wasn’t his place to worry about how much James ate. It wasn’t his place to cook him dinner…

They stood in idle silence as the kettle boiled. Robbie found himself tugging at the sleeve of his shirt under his fleece. It was an old one, a red plaid Val had bought him for doing work around the house. 

“I’m sorry about before,” Robbie said.

“What? On South Parks, no—”

“No, before in the hallway. You were joking and I was being...” _What could I say? Uptight_? “Silly,” he finished lamely. Would it be too forward to say he worried about him? “I just don’t like joking about you dying is all.”

There was a beat of silence and for a moment Robbie feared he’d gone too far. It was just a joke. James was _always_ cracking jokes. 

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” James said with a grimace. “I won’t make that joke again,” James said, hands raised in surrender. Or placation.

Robbie closed his mouth tightly and nodded.

He turned to the tea bags just to have something to do with his hands. The whistle of the kettle broke their silence. He’d taken James home to get him out of the cold and now he was, what? Lecturing him in his own kitchen. 

“I’m sorry,” Robbie said, “I didn’t mean to get so upset.”

As he handed James a mug, James’s hand caught his. “You don’t have to apologize.”

Robbie tried not to stare at James’s hand and tried not to feel disappointed when he took it away. He failed on both counts. For longer than Robbie wanted to admit, they both stood there, holding their steaming mugs, looking anywhere but at each other. 

“Shall we go—” James began. 

“What did you want to tell me?” Robbie blurted. Did he sound too hopeful? Did he sound like a pathetic old man?

For a moment James looked mortified and Robbie wished he hadn’t spoken. Had he misread everything? He was surely overstaying his welcome. 

“Should I go?” Robbie asked. He disliked the disappointment in his voice. He didn’t want James to feel bad or awkward. He didn’t want him to think ill of him. God, what a dreadful thought, for James to think ill of him.

“Please don’t.”

James had a burning look in his eyes. He placed his tea on the counter and laid his hand over Robbie’s arm. It sent warmth ricocheting straight into his both.

Robbie felt a mixture of hope and frustration. His head was starting to hurt trying to figure out what James was thinking and feeling, measuring it against what he himself desperately hoped James was thinking and feeling. Brilliant, beautiful, utterly bewildering man. Oxford murderers were easier to parse. 

Slowly, Robbie put his cup on the counter. 

“James, I don’t know what you want. In the park, I think we’re playing and then maybe that we’re not. I think I’m hurting you and then I think maybe I’m not. That you don’t want me to get off then—” he broke off suddenly. His face felt too hot, hotter than the boiling water. Steam was about to come out his ears, he was sure of it. 

“I didn’t want you to,” James said, his voice was so low and deep and when he stared at Robbie, there was something akin to hunger in his eyes. Robbie swallowed. “Didn’t you?”

“No, I—” he cleared his throat. “I rather liked it. I thought you did, too.”

Robbie stood very still for a long moment. “Oh,” he heard himself say. 

“And then I always assumed you weren’t interested,” James said. His eyes narrowed as he saw Robbie’s features begin to shift. “But you were—”

“Very interested. Am. I _am_ very interested.”

“Ah. You kept trying to put clothes on me, so I was a little confused.”

Somehow, after all the half-said sentences and hesitant emotions, that was the most ridiculous. Robbie burst out laughing. “I didn’t want you to catch a cold or die, lad.”

James groaned. “I wish we’d sorted this out sooner.”

“Neither of us are very good at this,” Robbie mused. 

“We’re not _quite_ a lost cause.”

“Not with you, no.”

James chuckled. “So you _do—_ ”

“Yes!”

“I was going to say ‘want to take my clothes off.’”

“Oh,” Robbie said. “Well, that, _too_. But I was going to say like you a great deal. And like when I was on top of you,” he added, his voice growing husky. 

“Well then.” James looked rather pink, but not at all displeased. “We should try again. Without the snow and—”

“Without the clothes?”

James gave him something of a wolfish grin. Moving forward, he took Robbie’s face in his hands and bowed down to press a hungry kiss to his lips. Robbie unbuttoned his sweater and slid his fingers across James’s chest, then one hand onto his bum. 

Pulling away for a moment, James breathed, “This is a much better snow day activity than a snowball fight.”

“You’re only saying that because I won,” Robbie said, pulling him back in for a hungry kiss. 

**Author's Note:**

> While I acknowledge that in actuality it is unlikely/unrealistic that a snowfall like the one in this fic hit would Oxford, given the inherently unpredictability of climate change, I have taken artistic liberty to say, hey, you never know. climate change could be like that
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
